Time Magazine names Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year

Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates must have got the memo by now: there's a new geek kid in town. Time Magazine has selected Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as its Person of the Year. Time's reasoning is as follows: "For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year."

I think it's absurd that he was picked for "Person of the Year." I mean, the guy put together a single, simple, social application and it happened to take off. It could have just as easily failed. There's nothing innovative or technologically advanced about it. In five years (or less) Facebook will be replaced by something else just like MySpace.

I'm thinking the voters at Time are too easily impressed by flashing lights and shiny things.

This was solely an editor's pick. I'm not seeing much of FB here, but perhaps it's everything that ever was and will be for the American society, perhaps. Must agree this sounds no more hot than 3D TV and will fade away just as any other fad.

Assange is good about promoting himself. Manning is the one who obtained the data, Assange just posted it on a web site. It's just about his ego, not about anything else. Why is it so surprising that a kid from a f'd up background wants everyone to talk about him and what he's doing? News organizations love Wikileaks cause they have something to report on. Just because something is in the news does not mean that most people really care about it, the media is just as self serving as any corporation, like Assange, truth is not their motive.

Zuckerberg's actions on Facebook affect far more people. All those privacy changes, selling of data, etc. That has profound implications not only on people's lives, but on how the web is governed, the laws that are passed, etc.

Zuckerberg's actions on Facebook affect far more people. All those privacy changes, selling of data, etc. That has profound implications not only on people's lives, but on how the web is governed, the laws that are passed, etc.

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Only in certain countries where its population is using Facebook. Assange's actions have a global reach and have and will in the future affect how countries interact with each other. I was watching a new's talk program and it was said people will in the future write down less information making historian job much more diffcult to uncover the truth.

Oh, man. They picked the wrong person! Obama should have gotten it! I mean, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing last year, so he should have been a shoo-in for 2010 Person of the Year! The racists...

Only in certain countries where its population is using Facebook. Assange's actions have a global reach and have and will in the future affect how countries interact with each other. I was watching a new's talk program and it was said people will in the future write down less information making historian job much more diffcult to uncover the truth.

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Outside of China, if they have computers they're using Facebook.

Assange's actions are only relevant in that he's proven what we all know. If you read unclassified documents from WW2, there is also a lot of stuff in them that would have shocked the average citizen of the US at the time. And the stuff in the diplomatic cables wasn't really that big of a surprise. What's the next revelation, that professional athletes sleep with a lot of women?

The real reason everyone is talking about Assange is that he can't keep his **** in his pants. People are hardly talking about the cables anymore, they're just focusing on him, which was probably his motivation all along. When you remove the hype and the media, he hasn't really done all that much.

Decimae said:
The voters picked Assange. And I agree. He already has more influence then Zuckenburg imo, since many news sites have a dedicated "wikileaks" part.

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Many more news sites have Facebook 'friending' links, and Twitter feeds.

I don't even use Facebook, but this is a good pick. Over five-hundred million people use the service. My country's population is thirty-three million, and just under half of our citizenry use Facebook. If somebody thinks that is somehow insignificant, then I don't think they're accounting for the societal changes that are occurring, for better or for worse.

gwailo247 said:
Outside of China, if they have computers they're using Facebook.

Assange's actions are only relevant in that he's proven what we all know. If you read unclassified documents from WW2, there is also a lot of stuff in them that would have shocked the average citizen of the US at the time. And the stuff in the diplomatic cables wasn't really that big of a surprise. What's the next revelation, that professional athletes sleep with a lot of women?

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Is that why US military personnel face court marshal for viewing Wikileaks?
Have you heard of the Geneva Conventions? The atrocities enacted in WW2 lead to international agreements on wartime behavior. But we all know that the US military has nothing to hide right.

gwailo247 said:
The real reason everyone is talking about Assange is that he can't keep his **** in his pants. People are hardly talking about the cables anymore, they're just focusing on him, which was probably his motivation all along. When you remove the hype and the media, he hasn't really done all that much.

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This isn't TMZ reporting on Assange, its reputable world news organizations. They're reporting this because it shows how far the US government has gone into a big brother controlling nanny state and how its reach an influence can extend beyond its borders.

Is that why US military personnel face court marshal for viewing Wikileaks?

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Not sure how that relates to my post. That Wikileaks has an impact on US soldiers? How does that relate to the rest of the country?[/quote]

Have you heard of the Geneva Conventions? The atrocities enacted in WW2 lead to international agreements on wartime behavior. But we all know that the US military has nothing to hide right.

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Not quite sure about your tangent here. I was referring to various political cables regarding things such as the Atlantic Charter or the Tehran Conference. Not sure which atrocities you're referring to?

This isn't TMZ reporting on Assange, its reputable world news organizations. They're reporting this because it shows how far the US government has gone into a big brother controlling nanny state and how its reach an influence can extend beyond its borders.

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I guess the difference between you and me is that nothing in those cables surprised me. I supposed I don't feel the same sense of betrayal, I never had any mythologized views about America being "good guys", just human beings with all the merits and faults particular to our species.

Whistleblowers were Time's Person of the year a few years ago, so I don't think they have any particular bias here. Assange's Q profile scored when he became accused of rape. If he beat up an old grandma nobody would care, but rape two women, that's salacious!

If they named WikiLeaks as "person" of the year I would not argue with you, but to give this egocentric *** any more fuel for his antics would be a bad idea. The cause he has latched onto is just, he's a self serving egotist. He probably would move Hanging With Mr. Cooper to the top of everyone's Netflix queue if that meant that people kept talking about him.

Why is it that rich and privileged people like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian feel the need to put out a sex tape? To be talked about. Assange wants to be talked about, he's just using a more socially acceptable way to do it, especially in today's anti-American climate. And he's clever enough to know that if he does something perceived as noble in his quest for fame, he can deflect all other accusations against his motives.